The five year Bull Market marches on.

From Fox Business News :

Wall Street moved soundly higher Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrials to their first close above 14,000, as investors kept jitters about the economy at bay and focused on a string of upbeat earnings reports.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index also had a record close.

Profit news from companies like International Business Machines Corp., network equipment maker Juniper Networks Inc., and business software company SAP AG help lift stocks and boosted investors’ appetite for technology issues.

Resurgent concerns about the health of subprime loans, which are made to borrowers with poor credit history, hurt financial stocks, while a report that a would-be suitor for Alcoa Inc. had lost interest kept the Dow Jones industrial average from extending its gains.

The flurry of corporate news Thursday coincided with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s return to Capitol Hill for the second day of his semiannual report to Congress in which he said problems such as foreclosures among holders of subprime mortgages are “likely to get worse before they get better.” Also, a research group predicted Thursday that the housing slump will cause the economy to contract slightly in coming months.

According to preliminary calculations, the Dow rose 82.19, or 0.59 percent, to 14,000.41. The blue chip index throughout the session danced around the 14,000 mark, having first reached it on Tuesday but pulling below the milestone before the close. The Dow’s advance Thursday again put the index above 14,000 but didn’t propel it past the trading high of 14,021.95 set this week.

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The Dow broke 14,000 for the first time today just before 10am EDT! Although the number declined shortly after the DJIA is expected to go beyond the 14,000 mark again later today.

From Breitbart :

The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 14,000 for the first time Tuesday, rising on a relatively mild inflation report and better-than- expected profit reports from blue chip names including Coca-Cola Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co.

The stock market’s best-known indicator crossed 14,000 in the first half-hour of trading, having taken just 57 trading days to make the trip from 13,000.

Stocks have risen fairly steadily since the spring amid a continuum of buyout news and evidence that despite higher fuel prices and the ongoing problems in the housing market and mortgage lending industry, consumers are spending and companies remain optimistic about the future. With the Federal Reserve ever vigilant about inflation, any news that prices are rising at a moderate pace has added to the market’s momentum, as it did Tuesday.

Investors are clearly upbeat, but the Dow’s latest accomplishment does raise questions about whether they are buying more on speculation than fundamentals. A week ago, the average tumbled nearly 150 points after disappointing forecasts from Home Depot Inc., Sears Holdings Corp. and homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc., but only two days later, the Dow barreled 283 points higher as investors chose to put a positive spin on a generally lackluster series of retail sales reports.

The short time that it took the Dow to pass this its milestone also recalls its ascent during the dot-com boom, especially since it took only 129 days to make the passage from 12,000 to 13,000. In the late the Dow took just 24 days to go from 10,000 to 11,000, and 89 days to go from 6,000 to 7,000.

The end of the high-tech boom plus the recession and the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks helped send all the major market indexes into reverse. It took the Dow 7 1/2 years to trek from 11,000 to 12,000, and only last October began setting its first record highs since January 2000.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 has also surpassed its early 2000 highs, reaching a new closing high last month and last week surpassing its trading high. The Nasdaq composite index, overinflated by the high- tech boom, is not expected to approach its closing high of 5,048.62 in the foreseeable future.

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